The request comes a month after Yahoo News reported on a March bulletin sent out by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS). The bulletin cited iCOP concerns about potential protests planned for March 20 based on “online inflammatory material” and posts on social media platforms Parler and Telegram, and noted that iCOP was “currently monitoring these social media channels for any potential threats.”
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Maloney and Comer on Tuesday expressed “concern” that iCOP was being used to “perform intelligence operations on First Amendment activity.”
“These activities raise serious questions about the scope of the program, the extent of sharing of information among law enforcement agencies, and whether USPIS has the authority to conduct such an operation,” the committee leaders wrote.
House Democrat, Republican leaders demand investigation of Postal Service spying Follow Us
Question of the Day
Now that we know the military is investigating Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UFOs), what do you think they might be?
Question of the Day House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., speaks during a House Oversight and Reform Committee regarding the on Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, May 12, 2021. (Jonathan Ernst/Pool via AP) . more > By Ryan Lovelace - The Washington Times - Tuesday, May 25, 2021
The House Oversight Committee on Tuesday urged an inspector general to investigate the extent of the U.S. Postal Service’s surveillance of Americans’ social media accounts.
Published May 20, 2021 Updated May 20, 2021, 12:53 pm CDT
The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is using a controversial facial recognition program as part of its recently uncovered covert surveillance efforts. Featured Video Hide
As revealed by
Yahoo News last month, the law enforcement arm for USPS, known as the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), has been secretly monitoring social media platforms under its Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP). Advertisement Hide
The surveillance activities were met with bipartisan pushback after it was revealed that iCOP was actively surveilling discussions online related to political protests.
In a follow-up report on Tuesday from
Yahoo News, new details reveal that iCOP is much more expansive than previously thought. The post office isn’t just engaged in basic surveillance. The USPIS also relies on “analysts who assume fake identities online, use sophisticated intelligen
USPS Reportedly Uses Clearview AI to Spy on Americans
The United States Postal Service (USPS) is reportedly using the facial recognition technology Clearview AI to spy on American citizens.
According to interviews and documents reviewed by Yahoo News, the use of the technology by the USPS Inspection Service is part of a program that tracks citizens social media activity and shares the information with law enforcement agencies.
Under the Service s Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP), analysts use Clearview’s collection of images scraped from public websites to identify unknown targets and report on them to the authorities.
According to Yahoo News, iCOP accesses Clearview’s facial recognition database of over 3 billion images from arrest photos uploaded to social media “to help identify unknown targets in an investigation or locate additional social media accounts for known individuals.”
Analysts are reported to have used intelligence tools to track social media posts
Their work falls under the Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP)
That was first revealed in April when it came under scrutiny for tracking Americans social media posts ahead of protests
Now it emerges iCOP is more far reaching than previously thought
The USPIS is said to use Clearview AI to help identify unknown targets in an investigation or locate additional social media accounts for known individuals
It also uses Zignal Labs - which runs keyword searches on possible threats - and Nfusion - which creates anonymous online accounts - in its tracking